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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Discussing the role of nuclear weapons in global politics and maintaining
Russia’s security at the International Summer School on Global Security in
the beginning of July in Abramtsevo, Russia, Eugene Miasnikov, Director of theCenter for
Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, presented the analysis of the trends in the development of
strategic forces of Russia, which can help understand why Russian senior
officials reacted so coldly to the US President Obama’s suggestion of further
reductions in the nuclear arsenals.

Miasnikov notes that the Russian
view of the role of nuclear weapons is essentially conservative. Though some
believe that nuclear weapons have lost their significance and that nuclear
deterrence is not more than just a myth, in practice these ideas do not really
affect the state nuclear policy. Miasnikov points out, that unlike the USA, the
discussion of the role of nuclear weapons among the Russian expert community
oftentimes takes place behind the scene, and it is difficult to say in what way
it affects the official policy of the Russian Federation.

In general there is a consensus
among Russian experts, Miasnikov says, that the nuclear weapon is (i) the key
element of strategic deterrence system; (ii) a guarantor of the Russian
national security from an extensive aggression of another state or a group of
states; (iii) a guarantor of sovereignty; (iv) an agency that ensures Russia’s
high status among other states; in the nuclear area, equal to the one of the
USA.

The views of Russian experts differ
mainly in regard to the way Russia should respond to the US suggestions for
further bilateral cutting of nuclear arsenals.
The views differ, Miasnikov explains, because specialists differentially
assess threats and dangers for the Russian Federation as well as prospects of
the Russian economy.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Libya, a
country struggling to maintain stability and order in its post-revolutionary
phase, is renowned in the international community for its disarmament efforts in
2003 and its ratification of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In
March of 2003, former President Muammar Qaddafi renounced Libya’s
weapons of mass destruction programs and allowed IAEA inspectors into the
country to verify that Libya was in fact making significant steps towards
nuclear disarmament.

Libya, along
with South Africa, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine are among the few states
that formerly had nuclear weapons stockpiles but disarmed and became
non-nuclear weapon parties to the NPT.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

This week, the CTBTO is holding a weeklong conference on the
CTBTO and the progress being made to ratify the CTBT.Simultaneously, there is an education program being held
both in Geneva and online.I am
one of the participants, and already I have learned so much about the CTBTO and
the delegation processes. Part of the course is a simulation of the Executive
Council Deliberations over an On-site Inspection Request.I was selected to be a part of the
representative team for Columbia.

The CTBT is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996, but it has not entered into force because eight Annex-2 states have not ratified the treaty. They are the United States, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, North Korea, China, and Iran.

Once the CTBT is
ratified and becomes part of international law, the UN will be able to monitor
the world.If a state violates the
CTBT the executive council has been set up for a democratic process to order on
site inspections.

It is the interest
of the United States to ratify the CTBT because the United States has already
ceased nuclear testing.The US now
uses computers to run calculations and virtual tests that are just as effective
as actual tests.If the US took a
leading role in getting the rest of the other states to ratify the treaty, the
risk of other states gaining nuclear weapons would be eliminated almost
entirely.The United States also
has even more reason to ratify the CTBT since Russia has already done so.Russia has the second most nuclear
weapons in the world.Russia tested
the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated called the Tsar Bomba in 1961.

This is the most
supported nuclear treaty in the world.The US and others continue to obstruct it.The US needs to begin working with the international
community instead of opposing it.For
the rest of the week, I will be learning more about how the CTBT is practically
carried out.I will also be taking
part in the Executive Council simulation.I hope to learn a lot this week.Around a hundred other participants from around the world will be
joining me.Perhaps through
education and awareness, support can spread for this important treaty.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

For the last 50 years, an
outside force has never threatened the United States’ nuclear weapons
safety.The United States has
always employed large security forces, secure/remote facilities, and strict
protocols.However, in recent
years, and especially recent months, the U.S. and its allies have come under
increased cyber attack.For
example, in the summer of 2012, alleged Iranian hackers destroyed 30,000
computers of the Saudi Aramco Company.Chinese hackers have stolen information on important defense projects
from defense contractors.The designs include the PAC-3,
THAAD, and the Navy’s Aegis ballistic-missile defense system.Also schematics on the F/A-18 fighter
jet, the V-22 Osprey, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and the Navy’s new
Littoral Combat Ship were stolen.If these systems were compromised, how long until the U.S. nuclear
weapons complex is compromised?Perhaps it already has been.

Many analysts are worried about the American banking system
or the power grids.However, I
can’t think of a worse situation than if our nuclear weapons were hacked.A nuclear power plant’s controls could
be compromised and next thing we know the US has its own Chernobyl.The US infected the Iranian nuclear
industry with a virus called Stuxnet that severely hindered their progress in
2010.Is the US immune to this
type of attack?In this age of Internet
attacks, any country or group can theoretically attack the United States from a
laptop.These recent escalations
in Internet attacks should signal world governments that the need for nuclear
disarmament is even more imperative.If a terrorist organization can’t build their own device, then they can
just use one that already exists by hacking the controls or falsifying reports
of an attack.Studies done have
shown that the US nuclear arsenal is indeed vulnerable to a cyber attack.

Technology advances at an incredible rate in this age.Defense systems cannot keep up with the
evolving capabilities of offensive tools.Simply making the US arsenal no longer fire ready would prevent hackers
from firing one of our nuclear warheads.The Cold War is over.Shifting the US’s nuclear arsenal to be able to address the threats of
this age is imperative.We do not
need to be ready for an impending attack from the USSR.Those days are gone.We must now be wary that our security
systems are all vulnerable.We
must protect ourselves from our own systems as much as from foreign attackers.Now it seems nuclear weapons and power
plants are liabilities.Deterrence
will not work in the Internet age.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

‘Wait a minute. That can’t be serious, can it?’ immediately popped
up in my head when I was reading the following news:

As the Moscow Patriarchate website reports, on 29 June
2013 the orthodox clergy, representatives of the Department of Economic
Development, Department of Agriculture, the administration of the city Sarov, as
well as RFNC representatives discussed the opening of a Science and Religion Reconciliation Center (Russian: научно-духовныйцентр) which
will be based on Russian Federal Nuclear Center and the Monastery of the Holy Dormition of Sarov hermitage. The Center,
which has received the blessing of Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' Kirill, will
host conferences and other events aimed to build up the dialogue between representatives
of science and the Church.

The question arises how are they going to find common grounds to
achieve understanding and build friendly relations? Can the views of Nuclear Center,*
which developed the first Soviet atomic and H-bombs, and the Church be compatible
with one another? What can the Institute that has developed weapons of mass
destruction and is working towards their higher performance possibly have
anything to do with the Church that is supposed to advocate common values and
teach people to appreciate and protect life and the world bestowed on us by God?

For me the idea of a Science and Religion Reconciliation Center is
as oxymoronic as the world peace keeping function of nuclear weapons. Let us
think about it. If the Church was intending to appeal to the conscious of
nuclear scientists, it would probably support organizations fighting for the
abolition of nuclear weapons rather than initiate discussions how to reconcile
religion and science. As for the funding, why is federal money being spent on
the opening of the Center instead of helping out anti-nuclear campaigns?

Maybe
I am too skeptical and the Church will indeed help to promote the idea that
science should work for the good of humanity and not jeopardize it with such
deadly inventions as nuclear weapons. Maybe it will. But the Moscow
Patriarchate is ambiguous about the direction in which the further talks will
be going. Will the Church try to persuade the Nuclear Center specialists that
their work is unethical, immoral, and antihuman? Or will the nuclear experts be
able to prove their view to the Church that nuclear weapons serve the only ‘honorable’
purpose of maintaining peace and security for the Russian people and the whole
world thus getting the approval of the Church? It is difficult to say based on
what information about the new Center’s work is available. We will find out in
November when the first conference is scheduled to take place at the Center.

*Russian
Federal Nuclear Center - The All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental
Physics (RFNC - VNIIEF) - is a Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FSUE) of the
State Atomic Energy Corporation “Rosatom”. The Institute was founded in 1946 to
implement the Soviet Atomic Project. Now the Institute is intensively working
towards higher nuclear weapons performance, improving their efficiency, safety
and reliability.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

The main argument given against the idea of nuclear
abolition is that the “genie is out of the bottle,” and the only thing that
keeps more countries from getting nuclear weapons is threatening them with
nuclear weapons. However, Iran and North
Korea stand as stark evidence that this is simply not true. Nation-states will develop nuclear weapons in
response to being threatened by nuclear weapons. In an age where the nuclear armed states can
invade any non-nuclear country without drastic consequences, threatened states
see that in this mindset, it only makes sense to arm oneself. The US was able to invade Vietnam, Iraq, and
Afghanistan. I would argue the only
reason why the US hasn’t invaded Iran is because Russia and China have
threatened retaliation. Russia invaded
Afghanistan in the 80s. China took over
Tibet. The message the nuclear powers
have been sending the rest of the world over the last 50 years is that if you
do something we don’t like, and you don’t have a nuclear arsenal, then we can
invade you. Therefore, the logical
conclusion is that in reality deterrence leads to proliferation because it
creates a mindset in which nuclear weapons are the source of power and
therefore necessary. This is disastrous
in an age where terrorists are no longer bound by national barriers. It is dangerous in a world that is currently
fraught with instability and popular unrest.

Currently, President Obama and President Putin have agreed
to lower their arsenals by a third more.
While this looks like a step in the right direction, it is not really
progress. Let me tell you why. Both Russia and the US are modernizing their
nuclear arsenals. They are spending
billions of dollars on making the nuclear weapons more deadly (as if blowing up
an entire city-sized area isn’t deadly enough), more difficult to shoot down
with missiles, and faster (missiles that can hit a target in 4 minutes rather
than ten). So really while they lower
the number of overall warheads, all they are really doing is retiring the old
warheads and actually creating a new stockpile of deadlier ones. I must ask why the US needs to spend billions
of dollars on making the deadliest weapons in human history deadlier. It is almost laughable. I mean how accurate does a nuclear missile
need to be? If you get within a mile of
your target you will still vaporize it.

For example, the old
WWII nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are 80 times weaker than
our smallest nuclear warhead now. Our
smallest nuclear warhead completely annihilates a 1.7 mile radius around the
detonation spot. Most buildings and all
living things in this area are wiped out instantly. They get off lucky. Then within a 2.7 mile radius from the blast
(or 1 mile outside of the instant death area) all buildings except for steel
structure are gone, fifty percent of living things are instantly killed, the
other fifty percent is mortally burned
or wounded and will die within the coming minutes, hours, or days after the
blast. At a 4.7 mile radius from the
blast center (or 2 miles outside of the last damage radius), all houses are
destroyed by the blast wave, an estimated five percent of the population is
instantly killed, forty-five percent are injured, all have been exposed to
toxic levels of radiation. They will
most likely die slowly and painfully of radiation poisoning. At a 7.4 mile radius (or roughly 3 miles from
the last damage radius) there is still blast damage but only twenty-five
percent of the population is injured.
After this point there is less damage from the blast itself, however
every living thing within thirty miles from the blast center has been exposed
to lethal doses of radiation. They will
die within days, and that area will be uninhabitable for ten years. Within ninety miles, all living persons will
die of radiation poisoning, also within days.
Within 160 miles, people will show symptoms of radiation poisoning: hair
loss, white blood loss, nerve damage.
The elderly, the young, and the sick will die. Finally within 250 miles from the blast
center, radiation poisoning will occur, though most will live. Also, the land will be safe to inhabit within
three years. This is the effect of both
the US and Russia’s smallest nuclear warhead.
In another report, this time on a terrorist nuclear attack on New York
City estimates that there would be 800,000 people killed, and 900,000 people
injured. Those are the effects of the
smallest warheads. If anything bigger is
used the results are dramatically worse.
The fact remains if ever a nuclear attack were to occur on any city the
results would be horrifying. While
deterrence may have prevented a nuclear attack from another country, no amount
of nuclear weapons can prevent a terrorist from acquiring a nuclear
weapon.

How do you prevent a terrorist from getting a nuclear
warhead? Well one way is to keep nuclear
weapons in secure facilities. However,
countries like Pakistan and India have questionable security, and the US can’t
regulate their security. Also, in
Pakistan’s case, if government rule was to break down, nothing would stop
terrorist groups from gaining access to those weapons. However, if the nuclear powers come to an
agreement to set a date for virtual disarmament, boost the power of the IAEA to
regularly inspect and regulate nuclear programs in all countries, and agree to
support the enforcement of the agreement through UN military force and
sanctions then the disarmament could be permanent. This is quite a lot to ask
from most of the nuclear powers.
However, I believe that security from nuclear attack should trump
sovereignty in this instance. If there
is no enforcement, then there is no punishment for failing to make good on
disarmament. Once countries disarm, it
would be very easy to make sure no country starts arming again because creating
weapon’s grade plutonium is a lengthy, expensive, and fairly obvious
endeavor. Think about it; no terrorist
organization has been able to make one because doing so requires building huge
facilities and employing experts who are under surveillance. Even North Korea, the most secretive country
in the world, didn’t keep their nuclear weapons development a secret. As long as the IAEA and various intelligence
agencies do their jobs, no country could get away with making a nuclear
weapon.

So why is it likely that this idea won’t come to
fruition? First of all, the belief in
nuclear deterrence is accepted as fact by both parties in Washington and
Moscow. Second, there is still little
trust for the Russians in Washington DC.
The good news is that Russia is not our enemy anymore, and this
mentality could be changed through effort.
For some reason, many politicians in America and Europe still see Russia
as a country to fear instead of work with.
The truth is the moment America takes off its Cold War goggles and views
Russia in a new way is the moment in which nuclear disarmament talks will
actually bear fruit. If the two
countries with the largest nuclear arsenals and worst nuclear track records
start transparently and honestly disarming, is when the rest of the world will
see that a commitment to a nuclear-free world is actually possible. Current deterrence ideology has failed. However, I believe that if the world is
transparently disarmed and then honestly regulated, nuclear weapons development
can be deterred.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

In the light
of the recent events regarding the currently most discussed whistleblower
Edward Snowden, it is impossible not think about the importance of having a moral
compass that guides you and motivates you for bold actions. Having realized that he was "part of
something that was doing far more harm than good," Edward Snowden decided
to disclose NSA unethical activities. Driven by the desire to serve his people and
humanity Snowden urges, 'You can't wait
around for someone else to act.' Snowden’s courage and his willingness to sacrifice
his comfortable life and take a bold risk to change the system that works
against humanity rather than for it deserves admiration. And it is this what global
leaders lack in regards to nuclear weapon discourse.

If
world leaders really care about the global community, the common good, the
future generations, why have they failed to avoid emergence of new nuclear
states and to prevent states from obtaining, possessing, and developing nuclear
weapons (not to mention to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons
altogether)? The answer is unfortunately that we are stuck at the stage when we
do not trust each other. We do not
believe that we are able to reach an agreement on important issues through
negotiations, and we still need something frightening (like military arsenal)
to back up our position and our intentions.

On
June 19 in Berlin, American President Barack Obama reminded us of the words of
John F. Kennedy asking to “look to the day of peace with justice, beyond
yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.” These words “call upon us to care
more about things than just our own self-comfort, about our own city, about our
own country. They demand that we embrace the common endeavor of all
humanity.”

Obama
urged to pursue the security of a world without nuclear weapons because “we may
no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but so long as nuclear weapons
exist, we are not truly safe.” He also mentioned that American and
Russian deployed nuclear warheads had been cut to their lowest levels since the
1950s but pretermitted that new, more precise, and more sophisticated nuclear
weapons are being developed. We have heard enough loud words about good
intentions of our leaders to abolish nuclear weapons. What we need to solve
this problem is that somebody decides to make the first step and set an example.
Success is gained by resolving on acting
not speaking. During the Cold War the United States and the Soviet
Union/Russia demonstrated the whole world that the power rests on nuclear
arsenal, and as long they procrastinate and put off total nuclear disarmament
they continue sending this message and more states will want to become nuclear.
The USA and Russia opened the Nuclear Age and it is their responsibility to put
it to an end.

Unfortunately,
neither the US nor Russia is willing to take a risk and just do it. “We cannot afford to disrupt the balance of the
system of strategic deterrence,” Russian President Vladimir Putin replied to
Obama’s suggestion tocut US and Russian nuclear arsenals by one third.
We still think in terms of deterrence. We are still afraid that if one of us
has military predominance, it would use it to its advantage and try to take
control over the other. And probably Russian authorities have good grounds for
such apprehensions taking into account decisions made by the US unilaterally in
the past that affected the global community.
We do not trust each other. And we are to blame because we never gave
each other a reason to do so.

We still live in the world (created by
ourselves) where nuclear weapons equal power. Nuclear weapons guarantee that
your voice will be heard and your opinion will be counted. It reveals the
injustice, inequality, and weaknesses of the global community. It reveals that some
states do not have the same say in global decision making and their opinion is valued
less than those of “mighty” states. It reveals that we distrust each other,
fearing that those who have military might can dictate their will and impose
their rules. It reveals our ignorance, our inability to negotiate and
understand each other, our incapability to build amicable, open, trustful
relations with each other. We are obsessed with power. That is human nature.
But we are not greedy, arrogant, ignorant, and bloodthirsty creatures. We are
human beings and we must remind ourselves what it means to be human. It means
showing such qualities as kindness, sensitivity, and compassion, among others. I
repeatedly use ‘we’ implying people, appealing to everybody, to all people on
earth because we are all the same.

For centuries we have been
dehumanizing and even demonizing each other, focusing on what differentiates us
from one another such as color of the skin, language, culture, religion, way of
life, and beliefs rather than what unites us. We have been creating monsters of
each other, justifying inequality, injustice, and wars, rather than trying to
find common grounds for peaceful coexistence on the planet that has resources
sufficient for everyone to have a decent and comfortable life. Those of us who have power have been trying
to impose their way of life, their ideals on others, to reduce difference to
make it comfortable for them, to make it more understandable, to make it safer.
We are afraid of differences. We are scared of those who differ from us and we
try to make them more like us instead of trying to understand them. If we put
aside all external attributes that frighten us off, we will be able to see that
we are not that different after all. All people want and pursue the same
things: peace and security, a dignified life, and the right to be different. Let us start here. Let us be different and not
be afraid of it, but appreciate and celebrate the diversity and beauty of life.

Barack Obama’s suggestion to reduce
and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons was met with skepticism not only by
Russian politicians concerned about the shift in strategic balance it may cause,
but also by American officials like Senator Sessions who said that it is a
dangerous policy and it is “driven by an ideological vision of the president,
of the world without nuclear weapons,” stressing that the security of America
and its allies depends on strong deterrence that includes maintaining a nuclear
arsenal. In other words, the Senator believes
that it isimpossible to have a secure world without nuclear
weapons. Maybe he is right. Maybe it is an ideological vision and even an
idealistic one especially for those who were born in the Nuclear Age and who do
not know what it is like to live without fear of nuclear holocaust. But
everything begins with an idea and faith. Even the invention of an A-bomb
started with an idea that occurred to a curious mind. The world free of this “miraculous
inventiveness” is a dream of billions, a dream that we hope will come true. We
actively use our minds to solve problems, create new inventions, and build an
environment in which we feel safe and comfortable. We hope that we will also
apply our hearts to what we do. We hope that we will stop relying on
technologies and begin to trust each other. We hope that we will stop working
on technological progress and start working diligently on human relations. We must stop drifting along in the direction
heading nowhere but extinction of all life. We need to be bold like Edward
Snowden to resist the system that works against our humanity and we need bold
leaders to change the course of history.

It would be reasonable to expect a
bold initiative from the US government. For the United States exercises its
power globally on an unprecedented level. For decades the United States assumes
the role of “leader of the free world” to spread and protect democratic values,
ideals, and freedoms. However, the past has revealed the hypocrisy of the US
benevolent leadership: the undemocratic character of methods used to establish
the rule of law and liberal order in the world. America’s intervention in other
nations’ affairs is often seen as an attempt to enforce its order and build
societies that are compatible with its vision of the world rather than “assist
people to work out their own way” as Truman declared in his famous 1947
doctrine. America has shown that it can
be aggressive and even violent. It has also demonstrated its inclination to
control and set its rules. Such policies and strategies make other states to want
to possess nuclear weapons to deter the United States from undue intrusion in their
affairs, to protect their way of life, to defend their right to be different.
At the same time the continuous reliance of the United States on its nuclear
arsenal sends the message that its power and leadership are based on its
military might, not common human values and democratic principles it claims to
be a faithful advocate of.

We
urge the US leader to have the courage to finally take “aboldinitiative
consistent with America’s moral heritage,” requested by Kissinger,
Nunn, Shultz and Perry in 2007. We encourage him to abolish the US nuclear
arsenal and thus set an example worthy to admire and follow. We ask him to be strong
enough not to be afraid of becoming weak. We ask him to trust his allies who
would back up America if required. We encourage him and the rest of the world
to see the power in the values shared by all people and not in the weapons. We
urge the US President and other global leaders to stop promising and act.

Ekaterina
Kuzmina is a graduate student at California State University, Fullerton and an intern at NAPF.